Trading is for individuals who can afford to lose money, so if you cannot afford to loose money; please do not trade. In trading we are here to multiply money and not create it; live trading helps you compound losses or multiply money; while demo trading creates money for you.
No risk, no reward; start practicing your trading strategy on a live trade; even if it is 1$; feel the heat and develop instinctively.
You are definitely wrong, strategy testing is not something just newbies do, and not something you do on a fake market or just backtesting neither, you could always test a strategy live on real market but with fake money as well, and it will work, it will teach you stuff. You might be right about the fact that you will not become a perfect trader, but the thing you are wrong is the fact that there are very very stupid people on earth, and those trading place that you deal with fake money helps them learn a thing or not, there are literally people who do not know how to buy and sell.
There is a famous thing about some famous park in USA about why garbage are not more animal proofed so that animals can't get into them and famous response is "there is a significant overlap between stupidest tourist and smartest animal", so think twice about how idiot people can be. You look like a smart guy, so it could be futile for you, but there are millions of morons, it works for them.